June 30th

Dearest Family and Friends, 

So I don't have any pictures today. I'm kind of sucking on that goal there. I will try again this week though and try to make it up to you! It's hard to find interesting things to take pictures of or with. 

It's been raining a lot here. Which makes walking kind of a bummer. I'll get soaked on purpose one of these days and send you a picture to show how hardcore I am. 

Things are picking up...slowly. We have a Marshallese lady who is going to marry a semi-active member of the ward. She wants to be baptized, but she also doesn't speak much English. So that's a challenge. 

We have our follow-up with Dale and Maddie this week, looking forward to that. He's the Nova guy

Also, Vonnie, the older lady we found now has an extra large print edition of the Book of Mormon and asks a lot of questions! She's sweet, and we're excited to teach her about the Plan of Salvation this week. Being a missionary has taught me some cool things, and one of my favorites is how most people's spirits instinctively believe (or reject) some things, and how we are the only Church that teaches them.

First, everybody knows that they will be with their family forever, but the Church of Jesus Christ is the only one that teaches about Eternal Marriage and families.

Second, most people I've talked to believe that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate personages. Again, we're the only ones that teach that. 

Third, and least common, is predestination. Nobody wants to believe that they are predestined to go to heaven or hell, or to be a Christian or a Heathen. Nobody wants to believe that because it's unfair and unjust...and also untrue. 

I'm so grateful for the gift of this Church. Where would I be without it?

Love you all a bunch.

Pictures next week. 

Hopefully. 

Love,  

Elder Christopher Drake

 

June 23rd

So do you guys remember the guy with the Nova I talked to last week? 

Well he's basically awesome. Well, his daughter is actually more awesome but they're both cool. 

So we went to teach a first real lesson with Dale on Tuesday with our ward mission leader. It was actually just a drop-by because that's really all we do thanks to shotgunning an area. We thought we'd give it a try. We talk to Dale for a while and then start to tell him a little about what we believe. About 2 minutes into the Restoration his daughter walks in. Now, I'm worried because he's been telling us about how into church and how awesome his daughter is and I'm thinking that maybe she won't be open at all. So we start over. 

"...After Christ was resurrected, the Apostles ran the Church under His guidance, but the people quickly started to insert their own philosophies and beliefs and began to turn away from the truth." 

"Mhm, yep."

"Soon, the apostles had died or were killed, they had stopped calling new apostles to lead the church and it quickly fell into apostasy,"

"Absolutely."

"Because the early saints had left the truth and corrupted the Church, the earth plunged into what we call the Great Apostasy, and we needed a Restoration of Christ's church on the earth."

"Yes, exactly, that's exactly what we need!"

So THAT was cool. They told us to come back in two weeks. So we'll report back next week. It was pretty awesome. That will be the first time on my whole mission that anything has come from knocking on someone's door. Super cool. Now we just have to follow up with the rest of them this week! 

Things are going good as gold here. It was a little slower this week, but things are looking good. Plus, we have an ice cream social on Friday so that makes everything better. 

Okay here's a picture. I've made a goal to take one picture every day this week. Let's see how we do. 

This is Elder Dickson and me outside the Library half an hour ago. 

He's just pretending not to be as happy as me. 

Love you! 

Elder Christopher Drake

Cool cars = Potential Investigators

So I don't have pictures this week. Elder Dickson is just as bad at taking pictures as I am so we agreed that I'd start going picture crazy since I've mooched off of my other companions so much. So far that's not really working out. We're working on it though. We'll find an excuse to take pictures this week. 

Apparently the first week or so of shotgunning an area is really slow for everybody, so I don't feel so bad about it. It was a lot of biking or walking around knocking on random people's doors and trying to get to know people. It doesn't help that the mother of the one investigator with a baptismal date we have is having heart problems and lives with him so they've been in and out of the hospital. We met him once though, so that was cool. 

Oh so cool stories. This ward is awesome about exchanges and our ward missionaries are actually capable of doing their jobs, so that's super awesome. Usually ward missionaries are at least 86, can't drive at night, need at least 3 weeks notice to do anything, and have a crippled dog that they can't leave unattended for more than 5 minutes or something. Or they're 22, not on a mission yet, and like to hang out with the other missionaries because they're cooler. 

 We have a bunch of able, young people with free time in this ward and so that's awesome. We were out with one of the ward missionaries this Thursday and an appointment fell through. As we drove out of the neighborhood, I saw a '93 RX-7 parked in a driveway and became rather excited. We were on our way to one more house so decided not to stop. When that appointment fell through too, we decided to go back to RX-7 guy and talk to him about his car. When we knocked a few times, nobody answered. Finally, as we were walking back to our car, this young guy, maybe late 20's came out from the back of the house and looking suspicious of us said, "Can I help you guys with something?" So we proceeded to talk to him about his car for a while. Unfortunately he's rebuilding the turbo and waiting on an intercooler to be built so it wasn't running, but it was still neat. Then I made a church plug, and he said we could come back anytime and talk so that was awesome. 

On Friday, we were trying to contact some members we didn't know. We knocked on one door and the sister came out. She was very nice, and said we could come back but then her boyfriend came to the door. "Hey guys, I have to go to work and we were enjoying some alone time, so can you leave?" so we said yes, and finished talking to the sister to see when we could come back. Then boyfriend asked us, "Are you guys Mormons?" 

"Yes we are!" we piped back, 

"BYE" was all he responded, then kept repeating himself. "BYE. BYE. BYE. I'm Christian, I don't believe in something that happened in 1836. BYE. BYE." 

It was really awkward. So we just ignored him and kept talking to the less active sister for a minute while he kept saying "BYE" and then we left. People are funny. 

Oh that reminds me. While out with a member on another day we knocked on another less active member's door. His wife came to the door. "Hi, we're looking for Brother Wos-his-name, is he here?" 

"He's in bed," she replied, and turning her nose up said, "And in fact, we have been trying to get his name taken off your records for a long time now."

"Sure!" We responded, "We're sorry that it hasn't been done already, so the first step is to write a letter to our bishop ---"

"I don't want to write a letter!" she interrupted, "I just want his name off the records! He's not even a member of your church! His ex-wife, and really more her parents, got his name on there and we are tired of this harassment. The last two years when we got the Christmas cards and then a note about cleaning the church, we tried to call your offices and really it's becoming a legal issue now."  

Trying to stifle a laugh, we responded as patiently as we could, "That must be very frustrating, I'm sorry that we haven't taken you off the records yet. The only thing we know, is that the first step is to write a letter to our bishop saying you want your name off, and he'll meet with you once more and then it's all done."

"I'm not writing a letter!" (now she was getting a little heated and it was time to leave.) We tried to say a few more things but she just really doesn't want her names off the records I guess. People are strange. We thought about going over with an addressed, stamped, pre-written letter for her husband to sign, but we didn't want to harass her, so we're going to leave that up to the bishop to deal with. We'll see what he says. Good times! 

Anyway. 

Cars. 

After BYE guy, we went over to another less active family's home who had this creepy sticker on their window. It was an eye sitting in the palm of a hand and underneath the picture said, "Security system activated." and it was weird. Sadly, nobody came to the door, so we went and talked to the neighbor who had a '69 Nova in his garage. We talked to him about his car for a while, then he talked to us about religion for a good 30 minutes or so. He also said we could come back. Good deal. 

Morale of the story: It turns out that if you talk to someone about something they like, they're probably going to like you more than a typical Mormon missionary. 

Love you all! Have a great week. 

KA-POW. Shotgunned

Monday-Wednesday:

Pack. Try to see a few people. Pack, pack. Clean. Eat dinner at beloved members' homes. Pack. Pack. Sleep. Clean. Pack. Cry. Pack. Pack. 

The good news is I got to see all the people I love. Here's the Broadbent/Williams Family. It was good seeing them. Especially since they started going to church and everything. 

Me, Mevin, Nikita, Janet, Tim, Elder Allred, Tavier, Francesca, and Sawyer. Love those guys. Hopefully they get baptized before I go home. If not, then I'm going to have to come out for their baptism anyway. 

Thursday: Finish packing, lose church keys, (some character traits never die no matter what) drive to Mt. Vernon. Get caught in rainstorm. Arrive at transfer point, in probably the most torrential downpour I've ever seen. Probably not hurricane or Vietnam typhoon status, but I've never seen sideways rain before. I've seen slanty rain, but not sideways rain. It was very similar to getting sprayed with the hose when your sister has her thumb partially blocking the end, except it was like you had 30 sisters instead of two and they all had hoses.

We all hopped on the bus and drove for an hour and a half soaked to the bone. It was actually pretty gross because the air vents started to collect condensation. At one point I got rained on inside the car. Gross. 

We arrive at our destination and get out of the van. Elder Dickson and I try to find Elder Stearman so he can tell us who to look for to take us home. We find Brother Mason and pile our stuff in his van. He tells us all sorts of depressing stories about his life on the way home. I'm not sure how many times I can say "Wow, I'm sorry" without sounding insincere. But then again, it seems like he isn't too sad when he tells us about all of the tragedies in his life. So we just go with it. 

A few minutes later, we arrive at our apartment. Time to unpack and shower and change into dry clothes. Luckily this ward is awesome and our ward mission leader is the man. We don't have a dinner that night, but we do have an exchange. So we go out and try to meet some peeps. We meet a few peeps, but still have no idea what we're doing. 

To be honest, we still have no idea what we're doing, and it's about the most awesome thing in the whole world. Guess what happens when you have no idea what you're doing but you're determined to work? Miracles happen. 

On Saturday we walked all day because our bikes both had flat tires. We wanted to visit an investigator we haven't met yet and walked and walked. When we got there, we couldn't find his apartment so we sat down and took a rest. A few minutes after we sat down, a lady came up to us and told us that she was a member, and wanted to come to church. She is from the Marshall Islands and apparently hasn't had her records transferred over from wherever she was last. She's not on the roles at least. So that was cool. Found a lost member. 

About an hour later, after a very short conversation with a lady we soon learned is less-active, a man stopped his car and backed up in the middle of the street. My first thought was, "Yes! A member who will give us a ride!" Then he rolled down his window and said, "Are you with the LDS?" 

"Yes we are!" We responded, although a little bummed that we probably weren't going to get a ride. We then had a 20 minute conversation with this guy about thi history of the Catholic church and how we should really be Catholic. I love that! I love when people know enough about their religion and love their religion enough to say, "You know what? You need to be a part of my church because you're soul is at stake and if you don't join my church you're going to miss out on a lot of blessings and possibly even go to hell." After all, if you don't believe that about your church, why are you going to your church anyway? So that was fun. We'll see where that goes. He actually e-mailed us this week and gave us some reading material from early church leaders I guess. Pretty neat guy. Totally gonna get baptized. 

This weeks been fun and interesting. Loving it here already. Elder Dickson is great, and we have a family of pet raccoons who come up to our slider every night. We can feed them by hand and it's basically the best thing ever. Probably not the safest thing ever, but the best things rarely are. 

Love you! 

Oh yeah, this is Elder Allred pulling me along in Melvin and Nikita's pony cart. (Don't worry, he got a ride too.)

New Address

2801 Wellington Cir Apt. A5

Roger, AR 72758

Sorry guys! I didn't get my new address until late Monday night, and I didn't want to say where my new area is because I want to surprise some of the people that I love here and just show up. That's why I'm sending another e-mail here because some of those people are in my email list. So here you go, send me lots of love notes, and I'll be better about sending notes as well. 

My new ward, Little Flock, is about 5 minutes from Bentonville. It's an awesome ward and I love it already despite having no idea what is going on. I got to meet the less-active parents of Siter Erickson on Friday, which was awesome. I can't wait to tell them haha. 

Love you! Weekly is on its way. With pictures!

Elder Christopher Drake

On the Road

Hello wonderful family and friends. My time in Stockton is at an end! 

I'm sad to leave the people here...not so much the town though. I'm excited to have a Walmarts again. Having to drive 30 minutes for reasonably priced groceries is stupid and annoying on a missionary budget. But I will miss the sweet trailer....

Anyhow, we had a pretty eventful week! Let me walk you through it:

Monday: Trip to Springfield with Bolivar Elders. Went to Bass Pro and looked at all the cool stuff. Like the firearms museum. Elder Aubry would've loved it. Also saw an 8 foot long Alligator Gar there. Guess I'm never swimming in a lake again. Then we went to the mall and felt like we were in Babylon or something. Don't understand why some people dress the way they do...Awkward. 

Tuesday: Worked in town. Saw Eddie, a guy in a nursing home. He doesn't hear very well, and only has one eye, and the one eye needs super duper help. His glasses are about half an inch thick, but only on the left eye because the right one is fake. He is extremely nice, but doesn't hear well. I asked him, "Eddie, do you know how long you're going to be here for?" (His wife moved to Kansas City and this is supposed to be a temporary thing) Pausing for a minute, he responded, "Yeah." and that was the end of that!

Later that day we saw a wonderful awesome Less-active lady, Sister Budd. We pulled up to her house and saw her sitting in the backyard with her back to us. This was a little strange at first until we saw a distinctive haze of smoke wafting up to the air. Elder Allred turned to me and said, "She's smoking!! Oh my gosh, get out of here! So awkward, get out of here before she sees us!" So we turned around and sped off and then were sad about that for the rest of the day. 

Wednesday: Got out of the house early and went to go do service for Brian, an investigator. He is 84. When we knocked on his door he welcomed us in, saying, "I was just about to lay down and take a nap. I'm pretty tired, it's good to see you boys though!" and then he put us to work. About 10 minutes later, he was out on his lawn tractor mowing the lawn. Old people have such an awesome work ethic. "Yeah, I was about to take a nap, but since you young boys are working, I guess I can get out and work a little too." What a champ. 

Later, as we were working, Brian's friend Rick came over and helped us. After working for a while he stopped us and said, "What do you do when you don't feel like the church you're a part of is right? I joined the Catholic church for my wife, but I just don't feel right about it. What's your church like? I need to find a church." So that was cool. 

Thursday: Went to Willard on exchanges. Guess they've been having trouble getting new people to teach and stuff, so we kinda drove around and did a bunch of drop bys. Had a sweet awesome dinner though, so that was cool. But it was also lame because Elder Allred had a sweet day here. Apparently he was calling out cray Brother Lamb for trying to preach his false doctrine and things got pretty heated, then later they invited Melvin and Nikita to be baptized and they said yes! So yeah, that was super duper awesome. 

Friday: Went to Eldorado (by the way, that's pronounced El-do-ray-do out here.) That kinda stunk. It was really slow and we had a hard time catching people at home. The good news is we went to a Chinese Buffet for lunch and an eight year old Asian boy sat us. Then he was playing with his six year old sister the whole time. It was funny. Pretty sure it was illegal, but I loved it. We saw a less-active guy and called him to repentance. You know, the usual. 

Saturday: Gave a blessing to an investigator first thing, and then went to work on the Ranch and do a bunch of servive. We moved an air conditioner and then wrassled some pigs. Then it started pouring. Then we had to fill the font for a baptism. Active kid's baptism, but it was the Pulsiphers and we love them so we did them a solid. Plus we're pros at it. We were supposed to have a dinner but they never called us back, so we went to this little cafe. Literally about 2 minutes after they gave us our food our dinner called. And we got burgers and fries, so you can't exactly take that to go and heat it up later. So that was awesome. Two dinners. The good news is, when we went to the members house, we spent about 20 minutes visiting, with the mother and her son, and then the father came in. He was wearing cut off jean shorts that went about halfway down his thighs and his mesh garment top. So he ate dinner like that and then rushed us out so he could go fishing in his pond. Good stuff. Transfer calls came, and it was bittersweet. 

Sunday: Went to Ward Council, then church, then got to say bye to people and go to the Brigances for dinner which is always a hoot. I'll be really sad to leave these people, but boy am I ready to leave this town behind haha. 

That was the week! Keep being awesome peeps. Thanks for the e-mails and letters! I'm going to be better about writing back! Love you!

Elder Christopher Drake